“My God, my child!”—“My father! my dear father!” exclaimed the parent and daughter, as, fear lending them strength and speed, they turned to retrace their steps, and endeavoured to double the point, the projection of which formed the southern extremity of the bay.
“I heard ye were here frae the bit callant ye sent to meet your carriage,” said the beggar, as he trudged stoutly on a step or two behind Miss Wardour; “and I couldna bide to think o’ the dainty young leddy’s peril, that has aye been kind to ilka forlorn heart that cam near her. Sae I lookit at the lift and the rin o’ the tide, till I settled it that if I could get down time eneugh to gie you warning, we wad do weel yet. But I doubt, I doubt, I have been beguiled! for what mortal ee ever saw sic a race as the tide is risening e’en now? See, yonder’s the Ratton’s Skerry—he aye held his neb abune the water in my day—but he’s aneath it now.”
Sir Arthur cast a look in the direction in which the old man pointed. A huge rock, which in general, even in spring-tides, displayed a hulk like the keel of a large vessel, was now quite under water, and its place only indicated by the boiling and breaking of the eddying waves which encountered its submarine resistance.
“Mak haste, mak haste, my bonny leddy,” continued the old man—“mak haste, and we may do yet! Take haud o’ my arm—an auld and frail arm it’s now, but it’s been in as sair stress as this is yet. Take haud o’ my arm, my winsome leddy! D’ye see yon wee black speck amang the wallowing waves yonder? This morning it was as high as the mast o’ a brig—it’s sma’ eneugh now—but, while I see as muckle black about it as the crown o’ my hat, I winna believe but we’ll get round the Ballyburgh Ness, for a’ that’s come and gane yet.”
Isabella, in silence, accepted from the old man the assistance which Sir Arthur was less able to afford her. The waves had now encroached so much upon the beach, that the firm and smooth footing which they had hitherto had on the sand must be exchanged for a rougher path close to the foot of the precipice, and in some places even raised upon its lower ledges. It would have been utterly impossible for Sir Arthur Wardour, or his daughter, to have found their way along these shelves without the guidance and encouragement of the beggar, who had been there before in high tides, though never, he acknowledged, “in sae awsome a night as this.”
It was indeed a dreadful evening. The howling of the storm mingled with the shrieks of the sea-fowl, and sounded like the dirge of the three devoted beings, who, pent between two of the most magnificent, yet most dreadful objects of nature—a raging tide and an insurmountable precipice—toiled along their painful and dangerous path, often lashed by the spray of some giant billow, which threw itself higher on the beach than those that had preceded it. Each minute did their enemy gain ground perceptibly upon them! Still, however, loth to relinquish the last hopes of life, they bent their eyes on the black rock pointed out by Ochiltree. It was yet distinctly visible among the breakers, and continued to be so, until they came to a turn in their precarious path, where an intervening projection of rock hid it from their sight. Deprived of the view of the beacon on which they had relied, they now experienced the double agony of terror and suspense. They struggled forward, however; but, when they arrived at the point from which they ought to have seen the crag, it was no longer visible: the signal of safety was lost among a thousand white breakers, which, dashing upon the point of the promontory, rose in prodigious sheets of snowy foam, as high as the mast of a first-rate man-of-war, against the dark brow of the precipice.
The countenance of the old man fell. Isabella gave a faint shriek, and, “God have mercy upon us!” which her guide solemnly uttered, was piteously echoed by Sir Arthur—“My child! my child!—to die such a death!”
“My father! my dear father!” his daughter exclaimed, clinging to him—“and you too, who have lost your own life in endeavouring to save ours!”
“That’s not worth the counting,” said the old man. “I hae lived to be weary o’ life; and here or yonder—at the back o’ a dyke, in a wreath o’ snaw, or in the wame o’ a wave, what signifies how the auld gaberlunzie dies?”
“Good man,” said Sir Arthur, “can you think of nothing?—of no help?—I’ll make you rich—I’ll give you a farm—I’ll”—